Delhi rape: Pictures of Kerala girl go viral on FB as that of victim’s

The Delhi gangrape case has seen a flurry of discussion on Facebook and Twitter with people lending support for the victim. But it seems, some have chosen this as an opportunity to circulate false pictures, claiming that they belong to the victim.

According to television reports on CNN-IBN,one of the photos being circulated is that of a girl from Kerala and the father of the Kerala girl has filed a complaint against it with the Kerala cyber cell.

The picture which is doing the rounds of the social networking website is that of a pretty, smiling girl in a kurta with another picture of a visibly ill woman being attended to by doctors in an inset. The photo comes with a caption that claims the girls in the two pictures to be the Delhi gangrape victims.

Representational Image. Getty Images

This particular rape case has generated a volley of public interest both on the web and off it with people marching nearly everyday to protest against the attack.

But the Facebook pictures reveal a voyeuristic side of this overwhelming interest in the Delhi gangrape case. The fact that people chose to share pictures of another girl with the wrong information highlights a sickening need to know everything about the victim, even when it goes against the law.The law is in fact clear on this; a rape victim’s name and identity should not be revealed. It’s almost as if, people have to put a face and name to the victim to realise the proportion of the tragedy in its entirety. As if the knowledge that she was brutally raped and left to die is not enough to draft a law, take decisive measures to book rapists and sexual offenders, to shake ourselves out of the self-imposed slumber that just lets bad things happen to us.

Facebook and Twitter might be great platforms to mobilise public opinion and share concern and ideas about a cause, but very often people are quick to hit the share button without having any regard for moral and legal correctness of the content involved.